Today in History - Aug. 12

Published 9:00 pm, Saturday, August 10, 2002

Today is Monday, Aug. 12, the 224th day of 2002. There are 141 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Aug. 12, 1972, the last American combat ground troops left Vietnam.

On this date:

In 1851, Isaac Singer was granted a patent on his sewing machine.

In 1867, President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

In 1898, the peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War was signed.

In 1898, Hawaii was formally annexed to the United States.

In 1944, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., eldest son of Joseph and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot when their explosives-laden Navy plane blew up over England.

In 1953, the Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

In 1960, the first balloon satellite _ the Echo One _ was launched by the United States from Cape Canaveral.

In 1962, one day after launching Andrian Nikolayev into orbit, the Soviet Union also sent up cosmonaut Pavel Popovich; both men landed safely on Aug. 15.

In 1977, the space shuttle Enterprise passed its first solo flight test by taking off atop a Boeing 747, separating, then touching down in California's Mojave Desert.

In 1985, the world's worst single-aircraft disaster occurred as a crippled Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing 520 people.

Ten years ago: After 14 months of negotiations, the United States, Mexico and Canada announced in Washington that they had concluded the North American Free Trade Agreement, to create the world's largest trading bloc. Avant-garde composer John Cage died in New York at age 79.

Five years ago: Steel workers approved a contract ending a 10-month strike against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. A flash flood in Arizona's Lower Antelope Canyon claimed the lives of 11 hikers.

One year ago: A suicide bomber blew himself up on the patio of a restaurant near the northern Israeli coastal town of Haifa, killing himself and wounding 21 people.